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Title: The First Man on the Moon

Author: Alfred Coppel

Release date: March 3, 2021 [eBook #64678]

Language: English

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON ***




                       The First Man On The Moon

                           By ALFRED COPPEL

         John Thurmon swore he'd be the first man on the moon.
            But he wasn't. He was only the first murderer.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Spring 1950.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The ship lay at a crazy angle on the stark whiteness of the pumice
plain. The rocket nozzles were a fused lump of slag; the fire-darkened
hull crumpled and warped by the impact of landing. And there was
silence ... complete and utter silence.

There could be no return. Thurmon realized this. At first the thought
had brought panic, but, as the scope of his achievement dawned
on him, the fear retreated. Bruised, giddy, half-crazed ... the
certainty of death held no terrors. Not yet. And it was worth it!
Fame ... _immortality_! Glory ... in return for the last few years of a
blighted, embittered, over-shadowed life. Yes, it was _well_ worth it.
And, except for the crash-landing and the certainty of no return, it
had all come to pass just as he had planned it for so long.

On his knees he caressed the gritty soil. He lifted his arms toward the
Day Star flaming in the day-night of space and knew completion. Tears
streaked his stubbled face, and strange noises came from his slack
mouth. The ecstasy of success was almost unbearable. For this, he had
labored a lifetime. For this, he had murdered a friend....

Across the abyss, the whole world waited for word. The transmitter
in the rocket had survived the crash. The word would come, thought
Thurmon ... when he was ready to send it. And sending it, he would
place the official seal of immortality on his brow. The book would
close. But wonderfully, satisfyingly. There would be no other to steal
his rightful glory. Only Wayne could have done that ... and Wayne was
dead. He laughed weirdly within his helmet. So simply done!

The Sea of Serenity stretched out before him in weird magnificence.
In the far distance a mountain range rose precipitously from the
wilderness of pumice to hump its spiny backbone at the brilliant stars.
A limbo of black shadows and stark white talus slopes. Moonscape!
Thurmon stumbled to his feet and fought the wave of nausea that surged
over him as his equilibrium teetered from the low gravity. Then in an
instant his discomfort was forgotten. Standing on the brink of the
cosmos, his ego drank of grandeur. All the splendor of Creation lay
before him like a jeweled carpet. All his! All for John Thurmon,
genius ... explorer ... murderer! For John Thurmon ... first man on
the Moon!

With an effort he dragged his eyes from the sky. Slowly, his reason
was returning. There was work to do. Wayne must be hidden. The next to
come must never know. And it should be done quickly. Time would fly and
in the last hours the fear would return. He knew that. Right now his
triumph sustained him.

There was the broadcast to look forward to. A billion people waited for
his words. It was a sop to his ego, but it could not make him forget
that this was costing him his life. On occasion, Thurmon could be
realistic, and he knew that, when there was nothing left to do but sit
and wait for the end, he would be afraid. Terribly, hideously afraid
and alone. It was the only flaw in his plan for immortality. Yet, his
life had been a barren thing, devoid of love or any real success. It
was little enough to trade. And this was his only chance for lasting
fame. He could not let it go.

The plan was working ... almost of its own inertia. He was alone.
He was on the Moon, where no man had ever been before him. Not even
Wayne. Wayne, who designed the rocket and guided it. Wayne, who had
stolen every chance Thurmon had ever had for recognition! Well, Wayne
was dead now. He had never put a living foot on the soil of the Moon.
Only Thurmon had done that. And it was his passport to eternal glory!
No one, _no one_ could take that away from him! Weighed in the loaded
balance of his mind, it more than compensated for dying alone and on
an alien world. In fact, even the dying would add to the legends, and
Thurmon would live forever. The first man on the Moon!

He ran his tongue over dry lips and stooped to pick up the thing at his
feet. Wayne's corpse was still bloated from internal pressures, and the
naked flesh was drying fast to a parchment-like consistency. Moisture
was still seeping in awful little globules from the shattered skull
where Thurmon's unseen blow had landed.

Thurmon found himself shuddering. The murder had been the hardest
part ... but now it was done ... and all that remained was to give his
dead companion a secret resting-place somewhere in the vast expanse of
pumice that lay out there under the blistering sun....

Thurmon's unsteady mind swerved from high elation to sadness. Poor
Wayne! He felt he could afford to be generous now. So many years of
work so soon to be forgotten. Just one quick blow, and poor, poor Wayne
slipped into the limbo of the Earth's forgotten....

Under the light gravity, he carried the naked, grisly bundle easily.
And, as he walked out into the Mare Tranquilitatis, his spirits rose
again. How wonderful it was to be certain that no one could steal his
triumph! Not even Wayne. Particularly not Wayne. He looked down at the
thing in his arms and chuckled. The sound was uncanny within the pyrex
bubble of his helmet.

After what seemed a long time, Thurmon stopped and set down his burden.
With his pack-spade he set to work digging a trench in the pumice. As
he dug, he found himself crooning happily to the corpse. His voice was
high-pitched and hysterical, but of course he did not notice it.

"There, there ... Wayne, old friend ... see? I am making a grave for
you. The very first grave, Wayne ... and you shall have it, old friend!
Yours the grave and mine the glory!" He laughed hilariously at the
thought. "I'll say you didn't make it alive. You didn't, did you? But
_I_ made it, Wayne. _Me!_ Alone ... all alone! With no help from you,
do you hear?"

Thurmon chattered on, the sound of his crazed voice dying within the
confines of his helmet, while all around him the eternal silence of the
Sea of Serenity continued unbroken. The stars shown steadily in the
airless sky, and the sun flamed in impotent splendor, furiously silent.

At last the pit was done, and Thurmon lowered the nude corpse into
the shadows. "Goodbye, Wayne. You see, you shouldn't have come here
with me. You shouldn't have tried to steal my success. That was a
wrong thing. But you're sorry now, aren't you, old friend? Don't feel
too badly, Wayne. I'll join you soon. Goodbye, Wayne. Goodbye...."
Laboriously, he shoveled pumice into the pit and tamped it down with
his leaded boots. Then he smoothed the surface of the dig until it was
as smooth as the rest of the surrounding plain. Satisfied, he turned
his back on the grave and started for the rocket.

He sang on the way back, so happy was he to have done with his ghastly
companion. Recklessly prodigal of his oxygen supply, he ran toward the
open valve of the ship. Breath coming hard, he stumbled into the rocket
and across the buckled deck-plates to the radarphone. The tiny atomic
batteries hummed as he removed the cadmium dampers. Power flickered the
needles of the main set. Thurmon adjusted the selector to "relay" and
tuned in his suit radio. Then he returned to sit in the open valve and
call the monitoring station.

He smiled with satisfaction as the response cut through the blanket of
hissing solar static.

"Hello! Hello, ES-1! This is White Sands! My Lord, we'd given you up
for lost! Where are you?"

Thurmon took a steadier grip on his dancing mind and replied:

"Listen carefully. Carefully, you understand? This is John Thurmon. I
am on the westernmost edge of the Sea of Serenity on the Moon. Wayne
is dead ... he didn't make it. Died during acceleration and I had to
dispose of his body in space. Did you get that? I am alone here. The
ship crashed on landing. I can't get back ... but it's worth it! I
haven't much time left ... but I want everyone to know that I made it.
It will be easier now for others ... after I've pointed the way. I'm
the _first_ and it's worth it! Did you get that?"

There was a long silence. Finally, the radarman spoke respectfully.
"Yes, Thurmon, we got that. Your transmission is being shunted onto the
commercial bands. Can you tell us what you see up there? And ... and
Thurmon, we all want you to know that our prayers are with you." Tears
were flowing on Earth now, Thurmon knew. Tears for a martyr to science
doomed to death alone on an alien world. He smiled thinly. Even this
tiny taste of deference and respect was heady wine to his frustrated
psyche.

Thurmon stepped through the valve and lowered himself to the plain. His
heart was pounding triumphantly. Carefully, painstakingly, he began
to describe his surroundings, interspersing his words with scientific
data. He played the hero well. There was no hysteria recognizable in
his voice ... and, if it trembled slightly, there was reason enough for
that.

He rounded the bulge of the rocket's nose and looked for the first
time at the western edge of the Mare. In the near distance an
irregularly-shaped outcropping of rock caught his eye. Transmitting as
he went, he made his way toward it.... He drew nearer. And as he did,
fear began to stir within him. His steps faltered, but some awful
power drew him on. His voice became a shrill rasp in his ears, and on
Earth a billion people gasped with horror....

"_Wayne!_"

Thurmon shouted the name in fear and threw his arm over his face. But
the thing remained. It was _real_!

"_Wayne ... no!_ IT CAN'T BE! NO...."

But the figure did not move. The vast colossus loomed stark white and
naked in the brilliant sunlight. Legs apart, arms folded on its breast,
it stared with brooding eyes at the vast emptiness of the lunar plain.

Thurmon howled with terror and fury.

"Damn you! _Damn you!_ Why don't you answer me? I killed you once ...
I'll kill you again! I'm the first one here! Do you hear me? I'll kill
you again!"

[Illustration: "_Why don't you answer me? I killed you once!_"]

He lowered his head and charged. The last thing he remembered was the
soundless tinkle of his shattering helmet, and the terrible pain as his
skull cracked under the suddenly shifting pressures....

       *       *       *       *       *

"... _And strangely enough, the story of the race's first conquest
of space is the story of one man, Sargon, the Lemurian Immortal, who
led his people to the Moon in the misty past of Earth's youth. The
Lemurians are gone now, but on the westernmost edge of the Sea of
Serenity there stands a statue of Sargon. It stands in magnificent
isolation, a monument to the first man on the Moon._"

                     Essays on Tellurian History,
                      Quintus Bland, Geneva Keep
                           Press, 12.50 Cr.



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